Jordan End-of-Term Report 2016-2018

Jordan’s third action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... led to major advances in the decentralization of political power and the drafting of an ambitious open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... policy. While a majority of commitments in key policy areas were either completely, or substantially, implemented by the end of term, there remains opportunity for increased engagement of civil society in the design and implementation of more ambitious commitments.

The Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) is a voluntary international initiative that aims to secure commitments from governments to their citizenry to promote transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... carries out a review of the activities of each OGP-participating country. This report summarizes the results of the second year of implementation from July 2017 to July 2018 and includes some relevant developments up to October 2018.

Jordan began its formal participation in September 2011, when Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, deputizing for King Abdullah II, declared the country’s intention to participate in the initiative. The Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MOPIC) is the leading office responsible for Jordan’s 2016–2018 action plan. MOPIC was the institution responsible for the first OGP action plan, while the Ministry of Public Sector Development was responsible for the second action plan.

However, some commitments lacked sufficient scope and ambitionAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should “stretch government practice beyond its current baseline with respect to key areas of open government.” Ambition captures the po... for tackling stakeholder-identified policy issues, while some commitments faced delays, with implementation starting after their allotted time. To address these issues, in the next action plan, the government could engage with a broader spectrum of CSOs (including Royal NGOs and Non-Royal NGOs), and focus on fostering a more constructive dialogue so that stakeholders feel ownership of the action plan. It is also recommended that Jordan considers the inclusionOGP participating governments are working to create governments that truly serve all people. Commitments in this area may address persons with disabilities, women and girls, lesbian, gay, bisexual, tr... More and effective implementation of commitments in areas of national importance, including the enforcement of the FOIA, securing the operating environment for media, and fostering greater public accountabilityAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, public accountability occurs when ”rules, regulations, and mechanisms in place call upon government actors to justify their actions, act upon criticisms ... More.

The Jordanian government published its end-of-term self-assessment report on 30 November 2018 on MOPIC’s website.[1] The government organized development of the fourth action plan and included consultation with civil society actors. The draft action plan was published and open for a two-week comment period, and was published in the administrative language, Arabic.

The fourth action plan was launched in November 2018 and includes five commitments in total, three of which were carried forward from this action plan (Commitments 1, 4a, and 10):

• CommitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... 1 was carried into Commitment 5: Institutionalization of the enforcement measures for access to information law
• Commitment 4a was carried into Commitment 4: unification and development of the national Human RightsAn essential part of open government includes protecting the sacred freedoms and rights of all citizens, including the most vulnerable groups, and holding those who violate human rights accountable. T... violations complaints mechanism
• Commitment 10 was carried into Commitment 2: Development and enhancement of the application of government open data policy

The other two commitments are new commitments which are related to the recommendations made in the progress report for the third action plan; namely improving the relationship between the public sector and civil society on issues such as procedures around receiving foreign funding, and enhancing the national discussion to promote political reforms in the areas of electionsImproving transparency in elections and maintaining the independence of electoral commissions is vital for promoting trust in the electoral system, preventing electoral fraud, and upholding the democr... More, political parties, decentralization, and municipalities’ legislationCreating and passing legislation is one of the most effective ways of ensuring open government reforms have long-lasting effects on government practices. Technical specifications: Act of creating or r....

Consultation with Civil Society during Implementation

Countries participating in OGP follow a process for consultation during development and implementation of their action plan. Governments commit to identify a forum to enable regular multi-stakeholder consultation on OGP implementation. This can be an existing entity or a new one. This section summarizes that information.

MOPIC organized three stakeholder meetings to inform CSOs on the implementation of Jordan’s third action plan. To invite the different stakeholders MOPIC representatives sent both personalized and general emails.

The IRM researcher attended the first multi-stakeholder consultation on implementation on 28 November 2017. The first half of this meeting took place between MOPIC and the government implementing agencies to provide an update on the progress of commitments. No civil society representatives were present during this part of the meeting. The second half of the meeting, however, involved civil society stakeholders and MOPIC presented an overview of the commitments and sought the opinion of civil society on the commitments.

MOPIC hosted a second consultation with civil society on 23 March 2018. At this meeting, MOPIC invited civil society representatives on the multi-stakeholder forumRegular dialogue between government and civil society is a core element of OGP participation. It builds trust, promotes joint problem-solving, and empowers civil society to influence the design, imple... to present challenges in relation to their engagement with implementing government agencies and discussed ways in which these challenges could be overcome. MOPIC also provided civil society with an update on the status of commitment implementation.

The final multi-stakeholder meeting, on 15 May 2018, saw the participation of over 100 state and non-state actors, to launch MOPIC’s Open Government Unit.[ii] MOPIC shared updates regarding commitment implementation with civil society. The government also shared the process through which it selected the commitments that it chose to include in the action plan, including those that were added directly as a result of civil society recommendations. Additionally, MOPIC gave the IRM researcher an opportunity to share some recommendations from the mid-term progress report. MOPIC also organized several breakout groups with topics based on some of the major commitments including Access to Information and Open Data.

The stakeholder meetings were invitation-only and took place in Amman—no forum was held in other governorates. However, MOPIC sent invitations to about 200 organizations in its database and meetings involved the participation of stakeholders from outside the capital.[iii] As confirmed through attendance notes, the forums comprised members of the MSF and other professional NGOs, spanning policy areas from women’s rights and the rule of law to transparency, environmental protection, and freedom of the press. Several donor agencies were also present.

In addition to these meetings, MOPIC noted that activities under a number of commitments were implemented in close cooperation and coordination with civil society. Commitments 3, 5, and 10, for example, were singled out by MOPIC as examples of civil society engagement during implementation of commitment activities. As discussed in detail below, these commitments were either substantially or completely implemented by the end of term.

Table 2: Consultation during Implementation

Table 3: Level of Public Influence during Implementation

The IRM has adapted the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) “Spectrum of Participation” to apply to OGP.[iv] This spectrum shows the potential level of public influence on the contents of the action plan. In the spirit of OGP, most countries should aspire for “collaborative.”

[1] http://www.mop.gov.jo/EchoBusV3.0/SystemAssets/pdf/ogp/EoTR_Jordan_OGP_3rd_NAP.PDF (accessed 13 March, 2019)

[ii] Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, Agenda for Launch of Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation Open Government Unit, 15 May 2018, https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/
1Tm5VD0C78rBWAgek7KQljU7LlPwh0Jvl

[iii] IRM online interview with CSO representative, Ragheb Shraim – Executive Manager, Al-Hayet-Rased, 2019.

[iv] https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.iap2.org/resource/resmgr/pillars/Spectrum_8.5x11_Print.pdf